Because of You
by xblondecutieo23
Summary: BN. Brooke's perfect life and secret affair with her best friend's brother, Nathan, are painfully ruined when Haley dies in their horrific car accident and Brooke can't move on. Very angsty. BrookeNathan, Brathan.


**Because Of You**

**Author's Note:** Well, first off I'd like to address my other two fics, if anyone's still reading them. I am working on updates, right now actually, so I plan to get those out in the next couple of weeks, I hope you'll read them. And I'm also working on two new fics, one which I think I'll publish, the other we'll see. But be in the lookout for those. Anyways, this is just a random oneshot I thought up when I was on my home from a party with my best friend many months ago. It is B/N, and a little B/H, so if you're expecting some B/L like I usually write, well you won't get it. Enjoy! Thanks very very very much to my favorite sister Michaela for her amazing beta skills and for betaing this after so long.

**Disclaimer:** I do not own One Tree Hill, or any of it's characters.

-&-&-

Brooke's head whipped back angrily, her silky hair flapping against her neck and the liquid running down her throat causing slight irritation. Her hand tightened quickly around the plastic cup she held, before it was completely smashed in her fist. Sadly, the broken cup was replaced with a newer, filled one before she even made it to the trash can.

Brooke wondered how many drinks she'd had since the night started. Three, five, eight? She wasn't sure. An ironic chuckle escaped from her body as her head spun back to that night almost a year ago. How many drinks had she had that night? It was sad actually, she was so wasted, yet she could remember every little detail down to the smell of Haley's freshly washed hair.

She guessed that when you had your head thrown into a leather seat, sustained a concussion, and woke up with a broken rib and countless fractured bones, the alcohol was pretty much the least important thing to your health.

Though, it could be worse. She knew that, she watched that. She could have had her head and neck thrown into a glass window and both split open, along with a crushed chest. But no, that was someone else. She could see the blood stained evidence standing a mere twenty feet from her. She couldn't even bear to look at him before a searing pain exploded in her brain and her breath completely escaped from her lungs.

The anger inside of her wanted to walk up to the ridiculous little piece of shit and punch him in his chest until he was left breathless like she was. Subconsciously, though, her heart would never allow her to do such a thing. Once upon a time she cared about him, and what he felt. She was one hundred percent sure that he cared about her even more.

Well, maybe that jackass should have thought about that before he tore her life into pieces.

He wasn't with anyone, a quality that Nathan Scott had never held before. Up until a year ago, he was one of the hottest, most popular junior basketball players in the school. He was still hot of course, that would probably never change, but as for popular? Eh, not so much. When you're at fault for the loss of a human life, you tend to lose popularity points.

The pathetic fact was, that night Brooke was pretty wasted, Haley was intoxicated about half as much, and Nathan was one hundred percent sober. Yet, he was the one who fucked up and caused the accident. Some irony, huh?

"_Nathan get off," Brooke whined as she jammed her hand into his chest in an attempt to push him away from her. In the empty bedroom, hiding from the party outside of the bedroom, she stood straight, her body parallel with his although he towered over her, and made a quick attempt to walk around him. She groaned unconsciously as she felt his hands grip around her wrists and pull her limp body towards his._

"_What do you want, Nath-an?" she asked in a slightly drunken haze, ripping her hands from his wrists and placing them on her hips. She rolled her eyes at the gorgeous brunette standing in front of her as she felt him lightly wrap her hands in his and pull them towards him. She stomped her foot into the carpet underneath her and let out another groan._

"_Anyone could just walk right in here and see us! Did you ever think of that you fucking idiot?" she asked harshly, taking one hand away from hers, and connecting it with her forehead, mouthing the words "duh" as she did so._

"_Brooke," he uttered quietly as he peered down into her eyes. "We have to talk about earlier," he told her in a calm and quiet tone. He reached for her hand again and softly caressed it with his thumb._

_  
"No, we don't," she contradicted, but helplessly let her head fall to his shoulder. She breathed out heavily into his collar bone, and mumbled something that he couldn't quite here. He slowly brought his arm up to wrap around her back, and looked down into her hair._

"_What?" he asked, and watched as she looked up to him, a heartbreaking look plastered on her beautiful face._

"_Someone could see us," she repeated again with a slight slur on her words._

_Nathan tightened his hold on her, pulling her body just a few centimeters closer to his and feeling the full warmth of her body touching his. "And would that be so bad?" he whispered, planting a light kiss on her forehead where her skin met her hair. _

_She nodded as a deep breath escaped from her lips and reached his chest. Just the feeling of her hot breath on his skin was enough to drive him crazy. Yet, she didn't know that. She didn't know how much he wanted her. To her, he was a game. A conquest, even. A guy to have fun with._

"_This would destroy Haley. Come on Nathan, You're her goddamn brother, she's going to hate me!" Brooke said as she slowly detached herself from his hold and backed a foot or two away from him. Her gaze remained on his chest, which her head fit perfectly against. A few seconds later, her eyes fluttered up to the blue ones he held, and she could see it within them, she was right. He knew that._

"_She's going to find out sooner or later," Nathan whispered, selfishly if you will. However, he couldn't help it. He loved his sister, just as Brooke did, but he couldn't help but be madly in love with the girl standing in front of him. _

_Brooke stared into his eyes for a few moments, completely silent and void of anything to say. What was she supposed to say? Both she and Nathan were right, Haley would be furious with Brooke, and she was going to find out eventually. She knew it might not even be the fact that she was hooking up with Nathan, Haley's own brother, but that it had been going on for months now._

_Brooke remained silent, as did Nathan, as they watched each others every movement. After a minute of complete silence, Brooke finally gave in and let herself fall into Nathan's arms. He kissed her passionately from her lips to her neck, pulling off her shirt as he did so. _

_They weren't going to waste time, they never did at parties. Though she enjoyed sex with Nathan, at parties it wasn't as sensual. She was worried whether or not someone would walk in on them, and she always had to be in a rush to get back to people in the living room expecting her._

_Her underwear was off before she knew it, and her hand was sliding down his abdomen as he continued to kiss her fiercely. Deep down, he knew what she was doing. Maybe she was just going to have sex with him in an attempt to keep him from what he wanted to talk to her about. _

_Maybe screwing him was the way to make him forget that he'd poured his heart and soul out to her only hours earlier, and she didn't return the favor. Whether she was in love with him and was too scared to lose her best friend to really be with him, or if she just didn't feel the same way about him, he didn't know. Maybe he wouldn't ever get a straight answer from her, but he wouldn't complain about what she was giving him instead. He could certainly take the mind-blowing sex._

Brooke downed the remaining contents in her drink and threw the plastic to the ground, slamming her foot onto it the second it hit the hard floor. She was building the strength to march over to Nathan Scott, slap him square in the face, and curse him for ruining her life. She'd certainly wanted to do it before, but had never been able to. He meant something to her. He'd been important to her. It almost made her want to go running back into his arms.

Then she remembered it was his fault. He was the idiot who felt like having a little fun. What kind of person continues living after the crime he committed without psychiatric help? No wonder half of the school refused to talk to him. No wonder he was kicked off the basketball team for bad grades. No wonder his parents said a maximum of five words to him a day.

It hurt her, she wouldn't lie. It was hard to watch him suffering, to watch his life fall apart just as hers had. She could see it in his eyes when she caught small glances at him… he would gladly be the one dead. That hurt her to watch him like that.

And then she reminded herself once more that it was his fault. Whether intentional or not, he killed the young, energetic woman.

The night of the party, after Brooke finished hooking up with Nathan, she headed back to the party with her friends to drink for a few more hours. Nathan, seeing how drunk his sister and her best friend were, had demanded that he drive them home. One minute Brooke was talking to her about her poor choice in guys, and what seemed like minutes later, she was standing in the hospital room looking at her limp, lifeless body.

She remembered marching over to the guy who claimed to be in love with her, slapping him across his face, and screaming at the top of her lungs. She was pretty sure Deb thought she was fucking crazy. Hell, hearing the blood curdling scream that came from her lungs, she thought she was crazy. She continued to yell curse words at him, blame him for killing his sister, and then proceeded to tell him not to ever speak to her again.

Was she being overdramatic? Maybe a little… but that was expected. Brooke had stood in Haley's hospital room, only two minutes after waking up from her own unconscious state, and watched her die. She looked on seeing the blood gushing from her ripped open face. She saw the cuts trailing from her neck to her abdomen. She saw the girl who'd been the one constant thing in her messed up life since she was eight years old laying in a hospital bed as a few doctors pronounced her dead while Deb sobbed uncontrollably.

Haley didn't even have a chance. They didn't even take her to surgery, from what Brooke was told. When the paramedics took her body from the mess of car parts, pieces of glass remained stuck in her body. She'd been dead on the scene. Brooke was sure of that.

Nathan had been going well over the speed limit, with the music cranked up to the highest level possible. They rounded a corner and collided with the side of the minivan in front of them. There might have been a chance that Haley would have lived, had the car not slammed into a tree at the side of the road.

Haley hadn't been wearing her seatbelt, so once they slammed into the minivan, she flew forward, hitting her head and crushing her chest. Once they hit the tree, Haley's body was ejected from the seat. She hit the window, splitting open her head and broke her leg.

That stupid son of a bitch. Thinking back to the gruesome death Haley faced, and the horrible life Brooke was dealing with since, she knew Nathan was getting exactly what he deserved.

"Brooke?"

Brooke was shaken from her deep, dark thoughts as she heard the familiar voice lightly mumble her name. It was barely audible. Had Brooke not known that quiet, sensual tone from that man so well, it would have gone unnoticed. She wished it had. His voice was too hard to hear.

She angrily folded her arms across her chest in front of her, and began incessantly tapping her Manolo Blahnik heels on the wooden floor beneath her. "What the hell do you want?" she demanded with a strain on her voice to keep from yelling at him. She may have become an angry, bitter person, but she wasn't one for making a scene in public… not when it came to things involving Haley.

"I want to talk to you," he told her, quietly and calming. She could hear the fear in his voice. He was afraid to be standing there with her, trying to talk to her, yet he was doing it anyways. She thought that after a year of screaming in his face and telling him to drop dead, he'd gotten used to it. But apparently he hadn't. He was still trying to talk to her and still standing in front of her, afraid of her reaction.

"Well then go fuck yourself! Do you really think that I want to talk to you?" she said, her voice growing slightly louder with every word that she said. She knew that he didn't think he had a chance. How could he possibly think that he actually had a chance of her even talking to him, let alone anything else? He'd turned into a pathetic, little mess.

'_And it was all his fault' _she reminded herself.

"Someday you will, Brooke. I'm sorry. I've told you that a thousand times. I don't know what to do to make this better… for anyone. Do you think that I wanted my sister to die?" he asked her, his voice also growing louder to match her own. He raised his arms in a questioning way and looked around at the people that began to encircle the two.

Brooke couldn't help but wonder why he even showed up to the parties anymore. Brooke wasn't exactly miss social butterfly anymore. She'd turned into one bitchy, angry mess, but people still liked her. As for Nathan, some people still liked him, but nobody could be around him. Nobody was comfortable being around him. She still had a reason to be at these parties, whether she wanted to or not, Nathan didn't.

"Really, this is a general question. Do any of you think that I wanted to kill my sister?" his voice raised so that the angry shouts were pulsing through the house. "How 'bout you, Ryan Walker?" he said, turning straight to the blond haired soccer player standing a few feet away.

"Do you think I wanted Haley to die? You knew her pretty well, right? You got her really drunk and almost fucked her in Bevin's room that night," Nathan blurted out angrily and stepped towards the kid in front of him.

Brooke slowly closed her eyes to keep from breaking down in the middle of the living room. If it weren't for her mentally blocking out the rest of the universe and counting to ten in her head, she would be on the floor in a screaming, sobbing mess. She couldn't let that happen.

She'd been talking to Haley about Ryan Walker during the seconds leading up to the crash. Brooke was scolding Haley in her poor choice of guys, and even called her dumb in the joking way a best friend would, right before they felt the immense pain and eventual death.

She opened her eyes, letting out a deep breath she had been holding, to see Nathan still shouting at random people in the crowd. She mustered up the energy she still had left inside of her, screamed his name, and roughly grabbed hold of his arm, pulling him out into the cold night's air.

"Brooke, please," he pleaded as the two came to a stop outside.

Brooke shook her head and abruptly threw her hand up in the air to stop him from saying another word. He was slowly breaking, she could see that, but she was in just as much pain as he was, so he'd just have to get over himself and leave her alone.

"Just stop Nathan. Stop all of this bullshit. I can't take it," she whispered to him, in what was most likely the calmest tone she'd used with him in eleven months and seventeen days. She shook her head and began to back away from him slowly. "Just go home," she told him softly and began walking towards her car.

She heard his faint voice that let her know that he was clearly defeated. She ignored the soft words that asked, "are you going to come?" and stepped into her car. She sat in the drivers seat, completely motionless for a few minutes. He was doing the same. He hadn't moved an inch towards his car yet, and both knew why. She was going to answer him, and he would wait until she did so.

"Where else would I be?" she replied, before starting the engine, flinching a slight bit like she always had whenever she was in a car since the accident, and sped off into the darkness.

-&-&-

Brooke rubbed her cold upper arms with her hands and held herself tightly to keep from getting cold. In Tree Hill, it was always freezing cold late at night in the fall. She could tell someone that it was forty degrees out and that's why she was shivering, but that wasn't the real reason and any fool would know that.

The countless number of pictures hanging around with the fake sympathetic crowd of people that Brooke felt like screaming at were the reasons that she was shivering. Half of these people had barely known Haley. Half of these people were the least bit affected by her death. That made Brooke sick. She was fighting with every fiber of her being that she had to keep from breaking down, and these people weren't even shedding a tear.

Brooke knew she should have expected it. The Scotts' were a well liked family, mostly because Dan was so wealthy and popular, and everyone in Tree Hill always had to be at every single event. It didn't matter to them that this was Haley's one year memorial service… it was somewhere they had to be.

She was ready for it to be over. She just wanted to get out of here and go get drunk before she couldn't take the pain anymore. She knew that Haley would understand. Hell if their positions were switched, she'd be doing the same thing.

Brooke looked up to where Deb was talking about her love for her daughter and how much she had been missed. A part of her wanted to be over there right then, holding Deb and crying with her. She'd always felt like Deb was sort of her second mother. She was more of a mom to Brooke than her real mother was.

Next to Deb stood Dan, his hand caressing Deb's back as the two struggled to get through this. And next to Dan stood Nathan. He hadn't said a word all night, which Brooke understood. After all, he was responsible for Haley's death and he knew it, the whole town new it. Brooke knew some people, like herself, weren't quick to forgive.

She'd already forgiven Nathan, she knew that. She wouldn't admit that to anyone, but she knew it was true. She'd forgiven him for taking her best friend from her, but she couldn't be around him. She wanted to, no matter how much she told herself that she didn't. She wanted him to hold her. She wanted to kiss him again. She wanted to be with him. But she couldn't.

Every time she looked at him she would see Haley. She would see her best friend, the person she was closest to in the world, the only person she really had in the world. And he took that from her. He was the idiot who killed her best friend, and she felt the pain of losing Haley every time she caught a glimpse of Nathan.

No matter how much she was in love with Nathan, and she would safely admit that to herself now, she still hadn't been able to be around him for the past year because of how much pain she felt.

As she stared down at the ground, Brooke could feel Nathan's eyes on her. She couldn't quite explain how she knew he was watching her, she could just feel it. She continuously glanced around, still looking down, and fidgeted with her hands to keep from looking up at Nathan.

She noticed the light colored mark running between her elbow and her wrist. It was one of the two permanent scars she had from the accident. Her body had gone through a lot less than Haley's had. Brooke had woken up from her concussion after the accident, with her injuries much less severe. She'd been wearing her seatbelt, so she had a few cuts and broken bones, along with the concussion that she survived.

Now, a year later, she was fully recovered and left with two physical scars: one on her left arm from her side of the car when it collided with the other vehicle and one on her chest from the pressure against the seatbelt. Her body had healed to say the least; it was the emotional scars that could slowly kill her.

She ran her right hand lightly along her arm as she relived the moments again in her mind. Sometimes she wanted to scream her lungs out so that the images would stop flashing through her head. She could see them hitting the car and Haley flying forward, and then hitting the tree and Haley slamming into the window. The next image she had was her next conscious moments, getting out of her hospital bed and walking into Haley's room.

Quickly, she threw her head back and looked up to the family, because she could feel the tears growing in her eyes, threatening to fall down her face. She locked eyes with Nathan, who, like she had felt, had been staring at her. The second she met his eyes, seeing the growing tears in his blue eyes, she couldn't hold it in anymore. She no longer had the strength to keep them from falling. And as they began to cascade down her face, she ran.

-&-&-

Brooke heard a light tapping by her left ear, a noise that she'd heard three times in the last minute or so. She knew the noise, she knew who the noise was coming from, but she refused to look up from that damn spot on her steering wheel. She wasn't sure what it was. Mascara, maybe? She had done her makeup in the car before. Of course, she did it while she sat in the driveway, in fear that if she did it while she was driving, she would be in another accident. She was late to school, after waking up late one morning. She'd been able to shower, get dressed, brush her teeth, and grab a granola bar, but she'd forgotten her makeup.

To her, makeup was the most important thing. She wore a mask in front of everyone at school anyways, why not wear makeup? Everyone knew she was _sad_. If she looked depressed, people would ask, "Honey are you feeling okay, today?" They would expect for her to say yes, as no one wanted to hear the real answer. Everyone knew she missed her best friend, but no one knew exactly how fucked up she was from the whole thing. Most people didn't want to, not even her parents.

There were five people in the entire world that really cared about her and what she was feeling. She was still connected with Deb, even if she didn't spend a lot of time with her, she still had a bond with Deb that would probably never break. She had her to close friends, well, what she could consider friends. Even Peyton, Rachel, and Lucas didn't know exactly how depressed she was. Even they weren't let in all the way by Brooke. They knew why, as did Brooke. She wouldn't take the chance of getting so close with a friend like she had with Haley, for the fear that she would lose them.

And then there was Nathan. The only boy that she could love and hate at the same time. She'd always assumed everything would work itself out. If she was meant to be with Nathan, then somehow Haley would be okay with their secret affair, and they'd live happily ever after. Then he crashed his car, killed his sister, and ruined their lives. Suddenly, it was up to Brooke to make things work out. She loved Nathan, she knew that by now, but could she really, physically ever love him again without seeing the painful image of her dead best friend?

She didn't want to work things out on her own, simple as that. She didn't want to deal with the whole mess because she was pretty fucking sick of it. So by ignoring his tapping on the window, she thought he would go away and things could work out on their own. Really, she didn't even need someone else to sort everything out, she just needed Haley to come back and everything to go back to the way it was.

She fiercly wiped away the tears running down her face, causing her cheeks to turn dark red. She slammed her finger on a button, and the window began to lower itself. She waited a few seconds, to regain her compsure and steady breathing, before looking up at Nathan.

"Haven't I made it clear that I don't want to talk to you?" she asked him, her statements coming out a lot weaker than usual. "Yes. So why won't you just leave me alone? Huh? Do you care about me at all, Nathan?" she continued, leaving no time for him to answer her.

"I mean really, do you even give a shit? Because if you did, you'd know how much this hurts me. You'd know that everytime I see you I could throw myself off that bridge over there. And yet, you won't leave me alone. Why? Huh? Why can't you just do something right in your life for once, and leave me alone. Don't you think I at least deserve that?" she yelled as she stepped out of her car.

"You owe me that, Nathan. You ruined my life, don't you see that. I have nothing left, nothing. When you killed Haley, you took everything! And now, as if it's not bad enough, you have to remind me of it every damn day by coming around me. Why can't you just go away, Nathan?" she continued, as the yelling began to die down and turn into sobs.

"Brooke, you know why," he said softly, almost too soft for her to hear. "I want to leave you alone, Brooke. I hate what I've done to you. From the moment I wake up until the moment I fall asleep, I think about all the pain I've caused you and my family, and it literally kills me, Brooke. I physically hurt thinking about what I've done to you. I want to leave you alone. I want to stop hurting you. But I can't because I love you," he told her.

He stepped closer to her, about to reach out to her, but she quickly stepped back, hitting the smooth exterior of her car. "I'm sorry, Brooke. I really am, I don't know how many times I can tell you that before you believe me," he continued, every word spoken slowly and painful.

"I know," her raspy voice whispered, barely making it out of her mouth. She cleared her throat, wiping the last tear from her face. "I know you're sorry. I know you loved her and you didn't mean to do it. I forgave you for that a long time ago, Nathan. I still hate you for what you did, I just have to. But I've forgiven you," she explained to him slowly as she wrapped her cold arms around her weak, shaking body.

"I never told you that night. I never told you what I wanted to tell you. When you said you were in love with me, and you wanted to tell everyone that, I panicked. I took off my clothes and had sex with you because it was easier than what I wanted to say. I was going to tell you that I was in love with you, too. Not that I was ready to tell Haley or go public, but I was going to tell you," she continued to tell him as her lips quivered, seeing light and hope finally come into his eyes.

"Nathan, I think I'm still in love with you. God, I've had a crush on you for years, and when I kissed you... I've never felt so right about anything in my life, except for when I was with Haley. I've loved her more than I've ever loved anyone in my life, Nathan," Brooke continued to explain to him, now resting on her car as tears began to slowly flow from her eyes and she tried to hold herself steady.

"She was my best friend, the only person I could ever count on. It's not about you being sorry, it's now about if I'm still in love with you. I forgave you Nathan, so when I tell you that I hate you or I can't be around you, it's not that I haven't forgiven you or I don't love you anymore, it's about _her_," she said, breaking down into the tears she was sporting earlier. She knew this was one of the hardest, and bravest, things she'd done all year, but it needed to be done.

"You didn't mean to kill her, but she's dead. And every time I see you, I'm reminded of her death. It's been a year, and I can actually manage to go a day without seeing her face everywhere I turn. It's taken me this long, and when you're around me, it all comes back to me. So no matter if I've forgiven you, or if I love you, I can't be around you. Not yet."

She gave him a sad smile, and looked up into his eyes for the first time in a few minutes. She could see the tears building in his eyes, and it killed her. She didn't want him to hurt, but she needed to put herself first, and take care of herself before she could even think about him. She stepped a few inches closer to him, and then a few more. He didn't move, he didn't speak, he knew this was all her, and he didn't have the right to do anything. His entire body felt warmth and life as her lips brushed against his cheek, the rest of her body completely detached. Then, within seconds, she was in her car and driving away, possibly for the rest of his life.

-&-&-

_Five and half months later._

Brooke stepped up to the top of the porch, before stopping dead in her tracks, her heels roughly digging into the cement underneath her. She wasn't sure if she was quite ready to walk through that door. She'd been telling herself for weeks now that she was ready to move on, but she wasn't quite sure if she could actually do it. Once upon a time, she thought she'd never be ready.

But now, she was. And if she could just open the door and walk inside, then she'd move on. She hadn't been to the house in a year and a half, understandably. The three lonely souls living inside thought they'd never see either of the two girls who spent years of their life inside, for very different reasons. But she was there, and ready to move on.

She stood on the porch for ten minutes before stepping down. She stood on the second step for three more minutes before willing herself to step back up to the porch. There she stood for another fifteen minutes, without moving an inch. The next door neighbor was walking her dog, and if it were anyone else lurking on the porch she would have called the cops, but she knew Brooke, and knew not to call.

Finally, after being in front of the house for twenty-five minutes, she placed her hand on the doorknob, opened the door, and let herself inside. She knew both Deb and Dan worked until six, and only Nathan would be inside, she knew she could let herself in. She began walking up the steps, holding the railing for support. She reached the top of the steps where she took a deep breath, and made her way towards Nathan's room.

He was laying on his bed, headphones to his iPod in his ears, his hands up behind his head. The second he saw her in his bedroom, somewhere she hadn't been in what seemed like eternity, he pulled the headphones out of his ear, threw them onto the bed, and stood up. He stood straighter than people in the military, stuttering his words as he tried to ask what she was doing at his house, in his room.

"I miss her," she stated, simply and lightly. She wasn't angry, she wasn't sad, she just... missed her.

Nathan nodded as he ushered her to the chair sitting at his desk and then took a seat on his bed, hoping not to say or do anything to make her leave. "I miss her too," he replied, his words soft and gentle.

"I think she's happy. You know, in heaven. I don't know what heaven's like, or even if there is one. You know I don't go to church, or practice my religion. But I think wherever she is, she's happy," she told him, and for the first time in the past year and a half, she was talking about Haley with a smile on her face, and eyes clear of tears.

"I think so, too," he told Brooke, seeing the peace in her face, the gentleness in her eyes. He'd wondered if he'd ever seen something more beautiful than the brunette in front of him. Not only was she gorgeous, but she looked at peace.

"You room's different," Brooke said, her voice starting to grow louder and faster. "The basketball pictures are gone. Last time I was here you had so many pictures and posters of stupid basketball players, like Michael Jordan. God, you had so many posters of him, and those stupid shoes. Where are your trophies? You used to have them over on your dresser-" she continued to ramble, leaving no room for breathing, before he interrupted her by saying her name.

"I loved her, you know?" she asked, receiving a nod from Nathan, a guarded, cautious look on his face. "And you loved her," she stated, receiving yet another nod. "But you know, it doesn't really matter if we loved her, because she loved us. I remember the first day I met you. I was in sixth grade. You were sitting on porch, wearing your basketball clothes, and all I could think of was how cute you were, which of course lead to my long ass crush on you. Anyway, she told me that you were a jerk. A big, meanie, but you loved her and she loved you more than anything in the world. She loved you, Nathan, and she loved me, too."

Nathan smiled upon hearing the story, something he'd never really heard Haley say to him before. He knew they were brother and sister and they loved each other because they had to, but he'd never heard her say anything like that. He nodded as he realized what Brooke was saying to him.

"She loved us, and she's happy right now. I know she'd want us to be happy, too," Brooke said, a sincere smile on her face. "Even if that meant us being happy together," Brooke told him, and watched as he jumped to his feet once more and stepped near her. She slowly rose to her feet, but kept the distance between them. "Thank you, Nathan."

He looked into her eyes, confused as to what she was saying. One minute she was talking about Haley, then she was talking about them being together, and the next she was thanking him. "For what?" he asked.

"The last time we talked, a few months ago, when I said I couldn't be around you... you stayed away. You've given me space over these past months. You stopped going to those parties, and well I know you hated them and I don't think it was for me, but you've stayed away from me. And... I don't need space anymore. I still love you, Nathan. And I think one day I just woke up and realized that no matter how pissed off I was at the world, Haley wasn't going to come back. And then I realized how amazing she was, and how she'd want me to move on and be happy."

She watched as his eyes darted back and forth while looking at her. She couldn't imagine what he was thinking, and she knew if his heart was beating even half as fast as hers, then his mind was probably racing... but she needed to get it all out. "And later that day you were standing in line at lunch, and I was sitting there, and I saw you, and I just smiled. I didn't see Haley, I didn't see the crash, I just saw you. The boy I've loved for awhile now. I knew I was ready."

"Brooke?" he asked as he stepped closer to her, and placed his arms on her shoulders. She allowed him to touch her for the first time in nearly eighteen months.

"I'm ready, Nathan. I mean, I'm ready to be with you. I don't know if I could tell anyone yet, but I'm ready to be with you. I'm ready to touch you. You know, if you're not with someone else," she said, a slight chuckle at the end, praying that he wasn't with anyone else and she wasn't making a fool of herself.

"Of course not, Brooke. I told you I'd wait," he said, smiling down at her and pulling her body to his. He wrapped his arms tightly around, almost to the point of suffocating her. "And we don't have to tell anyone. It doesn't matter; I just want to be with you again."

She looked up to him, a smile on her face as her eyes sparkled. She rested her hand on the side of his face as she kissed him, soft at first, and then passionately. He was kissing her lips, he was kissing her neck, and before she realized it they'd taken off their shirts and her bra. She could feel his eyes on her chest where one of the two permanent scars lied, just above her breast. She looked down at it, and then back up to his eyes. She could see how sorry she was, how much he wanted to take it back.

A slight smile emerged onto her face, and she whispered into his ear, her hot breath against his skin like he loved so much. "It's okay."

He nodded to her, and felt her hand take hold of his and guide it to her chest. He ran his fingers over the scar, left from the accident, and could see one single tear in her eyes. He knew she wasn't sad. He knew she wasn't changing her mind. In fact it was the complete opposite. He leaned down towards her and planted a soft kiss on the scar before wrapping his arms around her and holding her against his chest.

She stood there for a few minutes, half naked against his unclothed body. For the first time since Haley's death, she felt close to someone, she felt sure of something, she felt like she'd finally been able to move on. When she kissed Nathan that night, when she felt him inside of her, and when she laid next to him, she was happy, just like she knew Haley would want her to be. She moved on, yes. Of course she'd never forget her friend, and the feeling of loss would never leave. But lying with Nathan, she knew they would finally be able to be happy again.


End file.
